


Solidarity

by smilebackwards



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with most wizards Peter had met was that they weren’t practical. An iron cage with a strong enough <i>claustra</i> spell was virtually inescapable with magic, but for someone who carried a lockpick set in their wallet for these kinds of problems, it was the work of a minute to jimmy the door open and stumble out into the balmy summer night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solidarity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [De_Nugis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/gifts).



_I’m dead,_ Peter thought. Because death was what happened when you tripped a demon trap. You didn’t wake up in a room shaped like an enormous oil drum, with a sprained ankle and a headache that hopefully wasn’t indicative of thaumaturgical degradation. Except, apparently, if your name was Peter Grant, you did.

Peter shoved himself up from the floor, supporting his weight on the rounded wall. It felt like cast iron. There was the rectangular outline of a door a few meters along and Peter limped his way over and leant down to peer into the keyhole.

The problem with most wizards Peter had met was that they weren’t practical. An iron cage with a strong enough _claustra_ spell was virtually inescapable with magic, but for someone who carried a lockpick set in their wallet for these kinds of problems, it was the work of a minute to jimmy the door open and stumble out into the balmy summer night.

Peter's brain took a few seconds to adjust. It had been mid-morning just a moment ago. He must have been unconscious for hours.

Flashes of blue and green were bursting back and forth across the quay. For a moment, Peter thought they were fireworks but they were too low to the ground and as his eyesight adjusted, he could make out two familiar profiles. Nightingale was throwing high order spells with lots of showy sparks—the kind that he rolled his eyes and assigned Peter essays on _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Artes Magicis_ when he asked about them—at the Faceless Man. 

_Of course, that utter bastard again,_ Peter thought with irritation. He hoped Lesley wasn’t here. This didn’t feel much like being kept out of it. It was a small consolation that Nightingale was still upright, rigid, while the Faceless Man was firing curses from down on one knee, his right leg twisted with a _torpesco._

Peter knew, objectively, that Nightingale had the firepower to take down two Tiger tanks by his lonesome, but thaumaturgical degradation was a silent killer and you didn’t just let someone take free shots at your governor. He threw a wobbly _impello_ in solidarity. Every little bit helps, right?

Nightingale turned toward him with another spell gathering in his palm. Peter thought it might have been a forma of _iacto_ by the way he felt his foot start to leave the ground but it fizzled and died as Nightingale looked at him. 

The Faceless Man took advantage of the distraction to throw another curse. Nightingale calmly raised his staff and swatted it away without looking. “Peter,” he said. “Peter.”

“Still alive,” Peter said, feeling oddly embarrassed by the broken look in Nightingale’s eyes.

“The demon trap activated,” Nightingale said. “How did you survive?”

Peter shrugged. “Magic?” Now that he thought about it, it was likely some variation of a transport spell. He’d felt the kind of _whoosh_ that usually happened when he was trying to call the salt shaker away from Molly before dinner, although he’d assumed at the time that it was from the explosion rushing towards him.

Nightingale turned abruptly to where the Faceless Man was trying to limp quietly away and said a _vincio inmobilis._ The Faceless Man went down like a roped calf. Nightingale strode over to him, hand clenched into a fist. Peter watched with keen academic interest. Most spells were performed with an open hand. Then Nightingale punched the Faceless Man right in his tan-masked face.

Peter blinked.

Nightingale shook out his hand once. “Even before our numbers were decimated, apprentices were off limits,” he said.

Peter could feel the shivers of shock setting in but he felt a warm glow in his chest.

“Peter,” Nightingale said, alarmed. “Perhaps you should sit down. You look pale.”

Peter generally didn’t look pale unless he was terribly ill and his face had gone bloodless so he assumed he must look as bad as he felt. The delayed realization of how near-death an escape he’d made was setting in and the sprained ankle wasn’t helping. 

Nightingale took his arm and lowered Peter to the ground. Then he removed the posh Burberry coat that Seawoll scoffed at and Peter secretly coveted and wrapped it around Peter’s shoulders. The fabric was warm. 

Peter let his eyes drift closed, focusing on Nightingale’s hand on his shoulder, until the blue and red flashes from a police spinner intruded through the dark of his eyelids. When he blinked his eyes open again there were two police cruisers and an ambulance. Nightingale pulled him back up and led Peter over to sit on the tail of the ambulance before going to talk to the officers. Peter thought he recognized Stephanopoulos but the Docklands were pretty far from Belgravia where the Murder Team was based.

The EMT flashed a penlight in his eyes and offered him a standard orange shock blanket. Peter waved it off, clutching Nightingale’s coat tighter around himself.

“Glad to see you didn’t actually die on us,” Stephanopoulos said.

Peter stared. It was her after all. “I’m rather pleased about it myself,” he said.

Stephanopoulos opened her notebook. “You feeling up to giving a statement? There’s a couple bodies here. This one’s going to need some documentation.”

“Sure,” Peter said. That sounded okay as long as he didn’t need to stand up or go sit in an interview room to do it. He wondered who the bodies belonged to. Chimeras probably, he thought sadly. “It’s going to involve a lot of the m-word,” he cautioned. 

“Peter,” Stephanopoulos softened, “You can use whatever words you like. We don’t take attacks on our own lightly. You and your boss may be the division of Weird Bollocks, but that includes you too.” 

Peter’s throat was a bit choked so he was glad when she kept talking so he didn’t have to. “And let me tell you,” Stephanopoulos added, “when that magic trap went off, that was some serious shit, Grant. We all got pushed back to the wall by the explosion and your friend over there,” she said, jerking her head toward where the Faceless Man, still frozen into an uncomfortable shape by Nightingale's _inmobilis_ , was being put none too gently into the back of a squad car, “left a smug little calling card in the wreckage. The look on your boss’s face was like the wrath of God. I swear the room heated up at least ten degrees and then he stormed out and we didn’t hear word one until he called in half an hour ago to tell us you were alive.”

Peter’s eyesight felt a little blurry. _Pull it together,_ he thought. There was probably going to be dashcam video of this attached to the case file. “I’m fine,” he said, thickly, and then rattled off a statement that mostly consisted of his being unconscious but would hopefully help demonstrate a clear case of self-defense on Nightingale’s behalf if there were any inquiry into the deaths of the chimeras. 

Stephanopoulos flipped her notebook closed when he was finished and called Nightingale over from where he’d been staring a hole in the Faceless Man through the window of the squad car. “You can take your apprentice now.”

“Are you ready, Peter?” Nightingale asked. “The Jag’s just around the corner.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
